


bite your tongue and say, "i will make it out of this alive."

by michirukaioh



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Female Friendship, Female-Centric, Gen, Post-breakup, girls supporting girls, independent usagi, sailor squad forever, season 2 mamo and usagi killed me and then these feelings happened so here we are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 00:17:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9691088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michirukaioh/pseuds/michirukaioh
Summary: Mamoru didn’t like girls who were weak, so she wouldn’t be weak anymore.(( set around/after episode 61 ))





	

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is honestly my very first (ever!) story posted here, and i wrote it a couple months back and just now found it again, but basically this is what happens when i'm having a lot of emo feelings over how things were going during the back half of sailor moon r between usagi and mamoru, so here we are. 
> 
> please enjoy!

“I don’t like girls who are weak,” he said, so she wouldn’t be weak anymore.

She told herself that.She walked herself home, repeating it in her head. 

 _You did this_ , she told the little voice inside her head begging her to stop saying that. _This is your fault_.

After all, she was Bunhead. 

She was Little Miss Bunhead.Little Miss Usagi, the girl who couldn’t keep a straight face for longer than a minute.The girl who took every small jab in her direction like a sword through the stomach.She was fourteen, going on thirteen, going on twelve…

Why would anyone want to be with a child, right?

A weak, immature, naive, crybaby.

Mamoru didn’t like girls who were weak, and that meant that Mamoru didn’t like her.

It was science.Probably.Ami would know the mechanics of it all better than Usagi, but she was pretty sure that was the way it worked.All rectangles were squares, but not all squares were rectangles, or however the expression went.

She didn’t know that, either.But she didn’t really know much of anything.

It was probably a miracle he’d stuck it out with her as long as he did.She should make him a trophy.

And then she could have Chibiusa give it to him.

He’d like it more coming from her.

* * *

Rei gave her tea, because Rei was the type of person to believe that there was an appropriate tea for any single given situation.

“You really need to mellow out, Usagi,” she said, but she said it with a voice that Usagi wasn’t entirely familiar with.The kind of voice that said, softly, afterwards, _But, I know it’s not that simple.I know that what you’re going through isn’t easy._  

Coming from Rei, even if she didn’t _actually_ say it and Usagi was just somehow assuming in her head that that was, in fact, what she was saying, it still counted for something.

“If you’re going to gloat, you might as well get it over with,” Usagi muttered, settling back down against the tatami mat and giving the teacup in front of her nothing more than a sideways glance.The mochi sat beside the tea, in all the different colored assortments that Mako had made it in, and she hadn’t touched a single bite.

Minako rested her head on Usagi’s shoulder, twisting blonde strands of her hair around her finger as if they were her own.

Rei sat down across from her, knees folded underneath her and hair swept over her eyes.For a few moments, she didn’t say anything at all.

And then she did.

“Why would I gloat, Usagi?” she asked, lifting her head to look back at her and blinking back at her pointedly.“Why would you think that watching you be _this_ pathetic would somehow be looked at like it was some sort of a triumph?It’s not, for the record.It’s not even attractive.Do you _want_ frown lines—?”

Whatever she would have said afterwards was quickly silenced by Ami clearing her throat and Mako glowering across the table at her. _Not the time_ , was what Usagi figured her eyes were saying.But that was saying that Usagi knew how to read people’s eyes.

She didn’t.She was lucky she knew how to read manga.

“You’d gloat because you’re _you_ ,” Usagi muttered.“Because this is what you _wanted_ , right?Because now you can have Mamo back to yourself, and—” 

Rei flinched.Actually flinched.Sat back sharply, looked at her long and hard, as if whatever Usagi had just spit out at her was complete and utter blasphemy.Like she'd smacked her. 

“That’s what you think?”

“That’s what _everyone_ thinks.”

Luna and Artemis ducked under the table.Mako started clearing plates.Ami busied herself with gathering up her books.Minako stiffened slightly, but didn’t waver.

“So, you think I hate you, that’s it?”Rei asked, folding her hands in front of her.“You think I hate you?You think that I want you to be miserable so that _I_ can steal _your_ soulmate?”

The last word hit Usagi harder than it probably should have.She swallowed hard, pulling her knees up to her chest and tying her hands around them like a sailor’s knot.“He’s not my soulmate anymore,” she muttered.“He doesn’t want to be.”

Rei rolled her eyes, bringing her tea cup to her lips and taking a long sip with closed eyes.“Well, lucky for you, that’s not the way the red string of fate works, now is it?” 

Usagi wasn’t so sure anymore. 

Rei didn’t say another word, nobody did.

It wasn’t until Mako was packing Usagi’s uneaten mochi into a bento, wrapping it in a cloth and handing it over to her to take home for later, that Rei finally spoke up. 

“If you really think I hate you,” Rei said, speaking so softly that Usagi briefly wondered if she was supposed to hear it at all.“Then you haven’t been paying enough attention.”

* * *

“He doesn’t think you’re weak, Usagi,” Mako assured her, kicking a pebble beneath her foot.A smile lifted slightly when she saw just how far away from it kicked.When she looked back at Usagi, it faltered once more.“He doesn’t.”

“He does,” Usagi mumbled back.“He said so.”

“He didn’t mean it,” she countered.“I know he didn’t.”

“How?”she asked.“How can you possibly _know_ that?He _said_ it.”

“Because he would never say that about you,” Mako told her, not a single trace of doubt laced in her words.“Because nobody ever would.”

From the other side of Usagi, Ami was looping her arm around Usagi’s, leading her down the school hallway.“There is a dictionary full of words out there just to describe _you_ , Usagi,” she said softly.“Weak isn’t one of them.” 

 _“I don’t like girls who are weak,”_ resonated through her mind ever the same.

Mamoru didn’t like girls who were weak, so she wouldn’t be weak anymore.

* * *

She wanted to feel okay, and she did.Sometimes.Sometimes, she was able to just go back to being the Usagi Tsukino that everyone needed her to be.She could be Sailor Moon, the leader.She could be Usagi Tsukino, the comic relief, the bottomless pit.She could be all of those things.

Until she got home.

Because when she got home, she was back to who she had been before.Back when he’d been Endymion, possessed by the Dark Kingdom.All she saw in her head was his face, and all she heard in her mind were his words.Telling her he didn’t like her anymore, telling her he didn’t want them to be together anymore, that Serenity and Endymion didn’t matter, because _they weren’t them_.

And he was right, wasn’t he?

What a poor, pathetic, naive girl she was.

Weak.That was the word.

* * *

She hated Chibiusa, because Chibiusa still got to see Mamoru.Because Mamoru looked after her like she was his responsibility.Mamoru took care of her.He drove her places.He helped with her school projects. 

He picked her up to take her to school some mornings, and some nights, when she got home, she saw his car parked in front of their house just long enough that Chibiusa could run out of the car and wave a goodbye at him from over her shoulder.

Mamo would stay idled in the street until he saw that she was inside safely.It was only when he drove away that Usagi would finally came out from where she had been hiding from around the corner.

 _Why her?_ she would ask herself. _Why does she get him?Why does she get my family?Why does she get_ ** _my life_** _?_

It was pretty obvious at this point that people were after her. 

Usagi kind of hated herself for sometimes hoping they would catch her.

* * *

She woke up in the middle of the night from the worst kind of nightmare.The kind that left her thinking, at the end of it, that maybe she had a chance.

Her excitement had awoken her.She had been convinced that she she opened her eyes, she would be in his arms.

She wasn’t.She had Chibiusa’s leg draped across her knee, mouth open and snoring softly.It was one of the few moments that Chibiusa didn’t have her hands wrapped around Usagi’s neck like a brace, demanding to know where the silver crystal was.

She almost looked cute, actually.Almost.

Usagi wanted to curl up inside herself, tuck herself away and not come up for air.

Instead, she slipped out of bed.

Luna eyed her from across the room, asking her where she was going, what she was doing.

Usagi merely slipped on her shoes and went out the door. 

* * *

“Usagi, it’s three in the morning,” Rei’s voice said softly, as if she wasn’t sitting on the steps of the Hikawa Shrine waiting for her to show up, and Usagi knew full well that she’d sensed her coming in this direction from the moment she’d gotten out of bed. 

“I know,” Usagi whined out through a yawn, as if she hadn’t asked for any of this.“But I want to not… I don’t want to be weak anymore.”

Rei stood up.“Not this again,” she muttered, but Usagi grabbed her wrist to make her stay. 

“I want you to help me, okay?”Usagi asked softly.“I need you to help me not be weak anymore.”

“Usagi, if he thinks you’re weak, he doesn’t deserve you in the first place,” Rei told her.“Because if he thinks you’re weak, he doesn’t know you.”

Without Usagi getting another word in, Rei was leading her to one of the rooms toward the back.Her grandpa was still trying his shot at classes aimed at young girls, and three in the morning just so happened to be one of the few occasions that the rooms were empty. 

“I really don’t think learning how to _fight_ is going to help you, you know,” Rei told her, stepping onto the mat and looking back at her.“I don’t think this is what he meant.” 

“I don’t care what he meant,” Usagi said, shaking her head back at her.She balled her hands into fists in front of her, crouching into what she assumed was a fight stance.“You’re going to teach me how to duke it out, deal?” 

Before Rei could say anything, Usagi was shooting her a knowing smile. 

“Come on, Rei,” she said softly, but her words came out like a challenge.“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about hitting me in the face, like, a thousand times before.Now’s your shot.” 

“You still going to be a crybaby if I do anything?” Rei asked.

“Have you _met_ me?” 

Rei threw the punch anyway.

* * *

Four weeks post-breakup, and Usagi was more _mad_ than she was sad.She figured that was progress, or something.Maybe.There were, like, stages of grief, or whatever, and she had just sort of jumbled them around so that they were in a different order. 

And the reason she was mad was because at this point, everyone just _knew_ who the Sailor Guardians were.And I mean, that was awesome because, like, that kind of totally meant she was sort of famous, right?

But, it also meant that Tuxedo Mask was famous, too.The mysterious masked man who always showed up with a red rose in hand?Yeah, come on.The newspapers _loved that_.Which meant that magazines were always buzzing about the fact that Tuxedo Mask showed up just at the nick of time for Sailor Moon, every time.

Because he did.Even after everything.He still showed up.

And then he left before she could get a word in.Because she still wasn’t good enough.

Because she wasn’t strong enough.Because she wasn’t smart enough.Because she wasn’t _pink_ enough.

Whatever. 

She was mad about it. 

That was the point. 

* * *

“Why?”

The battle was over, another wicked life form left in nothing more than a pile of dust at their feet.The rest of the Guardians had already left, vanishing off into the shadows before anyone could get too good a look at their faces.

Tuxedo Mask paused, turning back to look at her.He was rigid, because he was always rigid.But he was scared, too.Maybe he would never admit such a thing out loud, but she could feel it.He was scared.

“Why what, Sailor Moon?" 

She used to dream about him.Him as Tuxedo Mask and her as Sailor Moon.But right now, she would give anything for him to call her Usagi.Usako, preferably, but she would take Usagi. 

She didn’t get either.

Right now, he was Tuxedo Mask, and she was Sailor Moon, and that was as good as it was going to get.Plain and simple.

“Why do you keep showing up?”Oh, great.Her eyes were welling up with tears.Her chin was wobbling underneath her, and she was going to break at any moment.She didn’t want to break.“You don’t want to see me any other time, so _why_ do you show up?” 

He swallowed hard, and she expected him to just turn around and walk away from her without even giving her the courtesy of a response.

“It’s not that simple,” he said, however, shaking his head back at her.“I show up because I’ve always showed up when you need me to.”

“Then where are you the rest of the time?”Her voice cracked when the question escaped her.“Where are you when I _really_ need you?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but she didn’t let him finish.

“Because I can take care of myself.I have the Sailor Guardians on my side, and we can handle it without you.”She felt sick even saying the words, but her hands were shaking at her sides, and Luna was curling up against her leg as if giving her the only reassurance she needed to keep talking.

“You don’t want me to be weak, because… because you don’t _like_ girls who are weak.”Tuxedo Mask stood rigid and hollow, staring at her, and not saying a word.“So, you don’t want me to be weak?This is me not being weak.This is me not needing you.Because I don’t.B-because…”The words felt dry on her tongue as she forced them out.“Because if you don’t want me when I’m Usagi, then I don’t _need you_ when I’m Sailor Moon.” 

The color drained from his face, his lips parted to say words that weren’t coming out. 

She wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, shaking her head back at him and taking a couple steps back.“If you care about me even a little bit, you’ll stop showing up,” she whispered, finally building up the courage to take those steps back forward and walk past him, shoulder brushing against his as she did so.“I don’t want to need you anymore.” 

She was breathing out shakily as she made her way around the corner, stopping dead in her tracks when she could have sworn she heard one name falling past his lips.

 _“Usako…”_ he said. _“I’m so sorry.”_

 _No_ , she told herself. _No, he isn’t._

Her transformation faded, and she was back to Usagi, back to the school clothes she had been wearing before.

“Usagi!” a voice called out, small and shrill.Excited.More excited than it usually was when in the presence of her.

Usagi turned around, seeing Chibiusa running toward her with a sunhat over her pink hair and Luna P tucked tightly in her arms. 

“Do you want to walk home with me?” Chibiusa asked as she came to a halt in front of her, beaming back up at her with a smile that Usagi actually had to admit was kind of… cute. 

Usagi looked over her shoulder, in the direction where Tuxedo Mask had been but wasn’t anymore.She didn’t know why it stung so much as it did, especially after all this time.

She turned to look back at Chibiusa, eyebrows furrowed slightly.“I thought you were going to Mamo’s house.”

Chibiusa shook her head, and didn’t give Usagi a minute to say yes or no before she was reaching for her hand.“I want to go home with you,” she told her.She was looking at her warily a second later, as if second thinking her actions.“Is that okay?” 

Usagi didn’t look over her shoulder again.Instead, she squeezed the smaller girl’s hand back, leading her further down the sidewalk.

“Yeah,” Usagi said quietly.“Let’s go home.”

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!!


End file.
